


We Have To Say Goodbye (But I Don’t Want To Leave)

by Starlight_Wren



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types
Genre: 75th Hunger Games, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Fight Scene, Oneshot, Sad, Victors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-10
Updated: 2021-03-10
Packaged: 2021-03-16 22:01:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 747
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29956521
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Starlight_Wren/pseuds/Starlight_Wren
Summary: The 75th Hunger Games have come down to two Tributes—Finnick Odair and Johanna Mason, and it’s hard for them to say goodbye.
Kudos: 5





	We Have To Say Goodbye (But I Don’t Want To Leave)

**Author's Note:**

> TW for violence.

“Finnick, I don’t want to,” Johanna said. Quiet tears were pouring down her face. She hadn’t cried in years, but she couldn’t help it now. 

“I know, Johanna, me neither,” Finnick consoled. He pulled Johanna into a hug and let her cry on his shoulder. 

This brought both of them back to a time when they thought they’d never have to go back into the Arena. During the 73rd Hunger Games, one of Johanna’s Tributes—a 12-year-old, had died, crying for his mama. This, for some reason, had struck Johanna hard and she came to Finnick’s suite in tears. Finnick had let her cry on his shoulder. After,, they’d gone out to a bar and neither discussed anything that had happened. Johanna had appreciated it. She liked that Finnick didn’t pressure her to talk about things that upset her. 

Johanna pulled away, unsure of what to do next. She didn’t know if she could fight Finnick. One of them would have to die. Neither of them wanted it to be them, but they also didn’t want to kill the other. 

This was exactly what Snow wanted. A dramatic, emotional Hunger Games that took people's minds off of the small spark of rebellion from the year before and killed off the lovebirds that had ignited that spark. 

There had been a moment after they’d killed Enobaria that Johanna and Finnick had celebrated. Then, when they made eye contact, they realized what that meant. Two people could not win the Hunger Games. Only one of them could go home. 

“Here, why don’t we think about it this way,” Johanna said, “both of us will be going home. One on a train, and one in a box,” she laughed sharply. 

“Well, that’s one way to put it,” Finnick said, a ghost of a smile tracing his lips. 

“Can we get this over with?” Johanna asked, glancing over at her axe. 

“Whatever you’d like, Jo.”

Finnick teared up a little. He wasn’t usually this soft, but he wanted to be nice to Johanna in their last moments together. 

“Let’s go.”

Following an apologetic look that spoke all the words they couldn’t say aloud, Finnick and Johanna began to fight. 

Finnick, being tall and muscular, had an advantage over Johanna, but he didn’t have the weapon he was best with—a trident. He just had a knife. Johanna was small, but fierce with an axe, which she had. With disgust, she thought of the Capitol people in their homes, on the edges of their seats, waiting to see who won. This gave her a small surge of strength and she caught Finnick in the bicep with her axe. It wasn’t deep, though, and his surprise at the pain made Finnick tackle Johanna. 

Finnick stabbed Johanna in the neck. With a choking sound, she hit the sand. 

There was no cannon. 

Finnick fell to his knees next to Johanna. She was bleeding out. 

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. Johanna, who had very little time left to be conscious, nodded her head and lifted her hand. Finnick took her hand. 

Finnick whispered “I’m sorry,” over and over again to Johanna until he realized he needed to say something more meaningful before her canon went off. His last words to her couldn’t be “I’m sorry.”

“You’ll be home soon.”

Home. That word meant so much to Johanna. She loved her home and her family more than anything and would stop at nothing to protect them. She had told him once that District 7 had stopped feeling like home after her family died. So when Finnick told Johanna that she’d be home soon, he hadn’t meant District 7.

When a cannon went off, it was all Finnick could do to hope that Johanna had passed into some sort of afterlife in which she was home. 

Finnick had become the Victor of the 65th Hunger Games triumphantly, holding a bloody trident in the air.

Now, ten years later, he became the Victor of the 75th Hunger Games in the opposite way. Mourning, with a bloody knife off to the side of him and the dead body of a fellow Victor in front of him. 

He stood up and walked away quietly, letting a hovercraft take Johanna’s tired body out of the Arena. 

When the trumpets played and Finnick was announced as the Victor of the 75th Hunger Games, his only happy thought was that, at the very least, he'd get to go home to those that he loved.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading!


End file.
